"So you've lost your application for an _interim_ injunction?" Dorothy said demurely one night after tea, when her uncle had hurried off to a deacon's meeting, promising speedy return, and hospitably pressing his guest to stay for the substantial supper of cold meats and pastry with which our hardier fathers braved the terrors of nightmare and dyspepsia. "Oh, that's nothing, Miss Dorothy," said Nehemiah jauntily, glad of a subject of conversation in which he flattered himself he could shine, "nothing at all, I can assure you." "Then you expected to lose?" "Well, not say expect, but fortune of war you know, fortune of war, glorious uncertainty, and all that, don'tcherknow." "But you are certain to win in the end, or is there a glorious uncertainty about that?" "Oh! yes, sure to win in the long run. Pinder can't stand the racket. Expected he'd have caved in long since. Can't understand it. Sykes must be risking more than I'd like to. Sticks like a leech at all points." "There's an old saying, Mr. Wimpenny, that Tear'em's a good dog, but Holdfast's a better. Perhaps Mr. Sykes is one of your Holdfast breed." "Ah! Ah! very good, indeed, Miss Tinker. Must remember that. But we shall shake him off yet, you bet." "Thank you, I don't bet." "Beg pardon, Miss Tinker, only a way of speaking, don'tcherknow. No offence," and Nehemiah told himself that Dorothy was a very difficult girl indeed. "So you think you'll wear Mr. Pinder out. Do you mean his patience or his means?" "Oh! patience is cheap enough. I dare say Pinder has plenty of that. It's the poor man's assets, don'tcherknow." "I'm afraid that's often too true, Mr. Wimpenny." "Well, I could have sworn it was about all the stock-in-trade Pinder had to break him in. But somebody's finding the money, or else Sykes is a bigger fool than I take him to be." "Money, money, money, you men seem to talk and think of nothing but money." "And they say, Miss Tinker, that women have a very pretty notion of spending what the men think and talk about." "Well, I for one would rather talk of something else. You're sure, now, uncle is going to win this case?" "Well, of course I _think_ so, or I shouldn't have advised the proceedings." "But I suppose you advised the application for a what-do-you call it injunction. But you failed in that? Now I want you to tell me all about uncle's grievances against Mr. Pinder. It is so delightful to find a lawyer who can make things so beautifully simple to a poor ignoramus of a girl like me. I can see now why you have so many cases in the Courts." "Oh! Dorothy, Dorothy." And forthwith the willing victim of woman's guile talked at large of water encroachment, of unlawful ochre-water diverted from its natural course so that it passed by the head-goit of Co-op Mill, and only entered the river as it sped on to Wilberlee, to Mr. Tinker's great damage and detriment. Never was Nehemiah more eloquent, never had he so wrapt and intent a listener.